240K on a serpentine belt? Yep...

Last Thursday, the serpentine belt broke on my Saturn as I was leaving work. The belt was original and had 240K on it. Sorry no pics, but the belt broke pretty cleanly. Changing it in the parking lot at work was pretty easy with a screwdriver and 3/8" drive ratchet. It was tougher getting the splash shield off with its 6 or 8 push-in plastic rivets than changing the actual belt. On an unrelated note, I brought my car to Chevy to diagnose an issue I'm having with the car bucking when I start from a stoplight.

I'm still running the original belt on my Silverado. It's only just now starting to show signs of wear and it's at the top of my "to do" list to replace. But, if I knew I could get 200k miles out of it, then I still have 50k miles of life left in it. My biggest fear is it snapping and leaving me stranded somewhere.

Hmmm
Going on a trip soon-and I was kinda planning to replace the "fan belt" on the 98 suburban
Bought it 28,000 miles and 6 years ago-didn't replace the belt-not sure when PO did
but he was pretty good on maintenance
Belt "Looks" ok.
Charlie

By no means do I endorse running parts as long as I do, but I have on my car. The car runs 95%+ on the highway at constant speeds with cruise so the engine parts really aren't getting stressed too bad.

Charlie, definitely change your belt if you've never done it before going on that long trip and keep the old one in the truck as a spare. No sense in having it break somewhere and being stranded.

Wow. I replace my serpentine belts on all my vehicles at least every 5 years, minimum, for safety reasons. If it fails in the middle of nowhere, bad news. My truck has had a new one three times now, and it has not rolled over 100,000 miles yet.

I attribute the long life of parts on the Saturn to lots of highway miles and driving it easy with cruise. I rarely get on it hard. But, it did fail on me, it just took forever to do so. Luckily I had someone nearby that was able to bring me a replacement belt and tools to change it with.

DISCLAIMER: I am a professional idiot and do stupid things like run parts for far past their expected lifespans. Do not try this at home!